July 28-Aug. 3: SCIENCE; MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO

By James Glanz

Published: August 4, 2002

Physicists at Brookhaven National Laboratory are not sure if they have discovered a new form of matter or some faulty math. They observed the way billions of rare particles called muons whirled in a powerful magnetic field, and found that the rate of their microscopic jig did not match the predictions of accepted theories. Their conclusion: either a new form of matter was flitting through space and affecting the motion, or theorists have not yet solved a series of math mistakes they have made in working out the predictions of the known theory. James Glanz